Meltdown and Spectre patches not coming to older Chromebooks

Meltdown and Spectre threats could also hit Chromebooks

Although some ARM-driven Chromebooks do not need patching, there are also a few Chrome OS-powered notebooks that will not get any sort of protection from Meltdown and Spectre, including the Acer C7 and the Samsung Chromebook 5.

The Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities are keeping a lot of people busy these days, although some ARM-based processors are not affected by them. Because of these problems, everyone seems to be updating everything these days: mainboard manufacturers release new BIOS updates, most Linux distros get patches that take care of these potential problems, and the same happens with Microsoft's Windows, Apple's iOS and macOS, as well as with Google's Android and Chrome OS.

Sadly, not all Chromebooks will get the software updates that would protect them from potential attacks carried out by taking advantage of the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities. Starting the day a Chrome OS portable is launched, Google provides updates for 5 years. Since the first Chromebook was introduced back in mid-2011, there are a few of these machines who have reached their end of life already, so they will not get these essential security patches.

According to the official list that contains the status of the Meltdown updates for Chromebook and Chromebox devices, these are the notebooks that have reached the point of no return:

Fortunately, many ARM-powered Chromebooks do not need any updating. The list of such devices is very long and includes the Acer Chromebook 13 (CB5-311), Samsung's Chromebook Plus, the HP Chromebook 11 G5 EE, and many more.

At last, some devices have not been updated yet, but they need the update to stay secure and will get patched soon. A few examples from this category are the Toshiba Chromebook 2 (2015), the Dell Chromebook 13 7310, as well as the Acer Chromebase 24 AiO desktop PC.

Although I have been writing about new software and hardware for almost a decade, I consider myself to be old school. I always enjoy listening to music on CD or tape instead of digital files and I will not even get into the touchscreen vs physical keys debate. However, I also enjoy new technology, as I now have the chance to take a look at the future every day. I joined the Notebookcheck crew back in 2013 and I have no plans to leave the ship anytime soon.